Xiaomi Mi 6 available at S$599 in Singapore, along with pre-order bonus

Hot damn.

Four months after the official announcement of the flagship Xiaomi Mi 6, Singaporeans can finally get their hands on them. According to Lazada, 12th August is the official launch date of the Mi 6, and handsets purchased via the Lazada Mi Store have a 1-year official warranty attached to it. It will officially retail here for S$599.

Pre-order of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 smartphone begins on 5th August 2017 at 12P.M. This is for the 64GB version in Black (other variants TBC). The phone can be pre-ordered through the Mi Store on Lazada’s shopping website, the physical Mi Home store at Suntec City, and select Challenger outlets. Users who pre-order early enough will receive a bonus bundle, which includes a Mi Body Composition Scale and Mi Band 2 (while stocks last) with a total worth of S$111.90. For Lazada, the pre-order period ends on 9th August 2017, and the phones will be delivered from 12th August onwards.

Here’s a quick recap on the Xiaomi Mi 6. It has the latest, top-end Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 chipset that’s only found on select handsets. Currently, phones that are available here, and share the same flagship-tier SoC are the Sony Xperia XZ Premium, HTC U11, and OnePlus 5. While it’s not the first, the Mi 6 is currently the lowest-priced alternative for a 2017 flagship phone.

The phone ships with Android 7.0 OS (Nougat), and it has 6GB RAM (LPDDR4x) across all its variants. The sensor is no longer a physical button, but a tactile interface like the ones found on the Huawei P10. The Xiaomi Mi 6 sports a 5.15-inch Full HD display (1,920 x 1,080 pixels resolution) with a maximum brightness of 600-nits.

Physically, it features the "four-sided curved glass" appearance, a stainless steel rear, and a splash-resistant body, right down to its sealed SIM card slot. It has 3,350mAh of battery, and it lacks a 3.5mm audio port. Two 12-megapixel cameras reside in the back, and they have Beautify 3.0 and 2x optical zoom support. The combination of both lenses can register different depths-of-field, resulting in visually appealing portrait shots with bokeh effect.